Wednesday, September 24, 2008

First, I didn't know that eBay bought StumbleUpon last year. And then now, it is up for sale again according to TechCrunch. It is not yet known how much the selling price would be but eBay has already enlisted Deutsche Bank to find the right buyer. Below is a excerpt from TechCrunch's article.

In May 2007 eBay acquired website recommendation engine StumbleUpon for $75 million. Now, less than a year and a half later, they’re trying to unload it according to a source with knowledge of the sale process.

I used stumbleupon for a year and gave good results. However, it sends useless traffic to your site since most of the users are bloggers trying to get traffic-money. My bounce rate is at staggering 86%. But at least, it helped bring traffic to my site and a few friends who exchanged-link with me that in the long run, helped my PR ranking. Not that PR really matters but it is still some kind of status symbol. :)

But I was banned when I joined stumbleexchange in DigitalPoint. I never re-sign again after that since I can't really monetize the traffic that I get. Besides, almost all my contacts/friends in stumbleupon were banned, too! But if I find something new with them, I might try to join again but will no longer be active as before.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

I got an invite to submit an article on a online Filipino Community in Singapore that was recently setup. It's another addition to a number of websites that our fellow Filipinos in Singapore frequently visit. This new website isn't launched to the public yet but it already look promising.

What I liked about their system is when they said that I'm allowed to do the following:

One adsense unit within the article (300x250) in size. Only Adsense is allowed though.

Max of three external live links inside the article

Author

I only got the invitation through one of the administrators (zimatar) since I know him personally. The group said that they are going to allow all the would be members to submit their own articles for some of the sections. I don't know what would all the sections be but I'm invited to submit articles for Jokes, FAQ and Opinions. They also promised a simple blog engine for every user. I don't know if that would be customizable, though. Let's see when it comes.

You see, one of the techniques in creating incoming links is to submit articles to sites like about.com or guest posts on other blogs. Opportunities created by this kind of invitations should not be wasted. And the icing of the cake is the prospect of earning through adsense right smack from their website. It's another avenue for a passive income. And for those who don't have their own site yet, Filipinosg would be a good way to start with.

I'm now preparing a news article that I plan to submit by Monday. The topic is more of Singapore OFW, though. So my articles should have something to do with life and work in Singapore.